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Sunday, January 1, 2012

Zipper Bag Tutorial

I decided to make this bag for my nephew I posted about here. The first thing I did was I embroidered the dinasour and his name onto gray linen. Then I picked out the fabric for the bag- I had some old pants that were too short for me but the material was in good shape.

Here is how to make the zipper bag with waterproof lining:

I cut the fabric to make two 12" X 14" rectangles and sewed the dinosaur embroidery in the center of one side.

Fold the top of each piece of fabric over about 1 inch towards backside of fabric and press.

Pin 14" zipper in place to folded fabric so that the right side of zipper will be outside of bag.

Sew zipper to folded flap of fabric on both pieces of fabric using zipper foot on the machine.

When you are done sewing zipper it should look like this:

Cut out two strips for handles- 4" X 24"

Fold in half, right sides together and stitch down seam.

Press seam open, turn right side out and press again. Tuck in raw edges on ends and topstitch all the way around the handles.

Pin into place on right side of bag. Make sure and leave at least 1/2" from top of the bag in order to stitch in lining (I didn't do this and had a bit of trouble :( )

Sew handles on in all four places. Sew around and then sew an x through to reinforce.

Unzip zipper and place both right sides together- lining up the zippers edges. Sew around outside of all edges.

Set bag aside and cut out 2 vinyl pieces 11 1/2" X 14".

Sew around sides and bottom and then fold top over about 1 inch.

Place inside bag with wrong sides together. Pin at the top, making sure that vinyl is not touching the zipper- it won't close if this happens.

Starting at zipper pull end stitch all the way around the top with contrasting thread. Backstitch at beginning and end to secure.

Enjoy!!

Here is a picture of Eli with his new bag- sorry about the blur- my camera was acting funny that day!

A fabulous upcycling project!!! Thanks for sharing a great tutorial, especially the part about attaching vinyl to the interior. Love the stitch you've used to sew the embroidery to the bag. Your nephew sure looks happy with his new bag. I'd love for you to share this at my linky that's exclusively for bags and totes... http://threadingmyway.blogspot.com/2012/01/threading-your-way-bags-and-totes-link.html